I don't feel like touching anyone or being touched today (it's just like that sometimes), and it's a nonverbal day today, which means it takes so so much energy to talk and I really don't want to; but my cousin just told me she has "a lot of things to tell you!" and she's touchy-feely and I'm dreading this so fucking much but I don't know what to say to her because -
1. She's a kid
2. She gets upset very easily
And fuck, I just want to be alone
I feel so detached from people, my friends mostly, as if we don't have a connection anymore, as if they're just people I talk to - chat with, people behind a screen. They don't feel real. People don't feel real, my family included. I don't feel that attachment and I don't know what's wrong with me.
Moreover, when I send something and I don't get an immediate response, or even after a while, I forget about it. It's like we keep sending stuff to each other, but there's no emotional connection. As if that line has snapped.
I don't miss them with an ache in my chest, I don't miss them at all - anyway. I don't feel anything properly. I don't feel like my family is *family*, you know? That sense of being 'yours', I don't feel that with most people in my family. I don't feel like these connections are ***real***, I don't know how to explain it, I just can't feel emotions properly, I can't feel that my relationships are real, as in existing in reality (NOT real as in deep or meaningful) - everything just exists in the surface and I just want my relationships to be real as in deep and meaningful, where I feel like we have something.
when you remember that Niall wrote multiple songs about girls who like to have one night stands, who didn't want to commit or want labels, without victimising himself or slut shaming them, instead promising them unconditional acceptance, respect and non judgement, and you fall more in love with him than you already have 😌
SPOILER FOR FLEABAG
Fleabag and Boo were not in love. They were not romantically attracted to each other. They had a strong, beautiful friendship which transcended amatonormativity. Their love was so deep and so meaningful that people who're limited by the belief that only romantic love can be so, cannot comprehend how friends can love each other so purely and deeply.
This is what our amatonormative culture is doing - it's robbing us of the ability to appreciate real friendship, one which isn't beneath romantic relationships, one which isn't placed on the bottom of a relationship hierarchy, one where best friends talk to each other, and treat each other as if they're lovers; because they are, they are lovers in the sense that they have unconditional love for each other, they are lovers in the sense that they started a café together and stayed together to run it, they are lovers in the sense that Boo was Fleabag's emotional anchor when her mother passed away, instead of her boyfriend. They are lovers in every sense, except for the romantic one.
Another thing I absolutely love about Fleabag - the show - is the fact that Fleabag's life didn't revolve around finding romance. She had fulfilling relationships with her best friend, her best friend's hamster, her sister, a practical stranger who saved her life and a priest who picked God.
She never made the priest feel bad for not picking her, never pressurised him to reciprocate her 'I love you', never slighted his relationship with God despite her being an atheist.
She was such a wholesome character and I fell in love with her in all the ways a person can fall in love with another person. I am so frigging heartbroken that I'll never get to experience the rest of her life, but I am also so frigging content with how the show ended. It was absolutely beautiful.
what is harm reduction in simple, everyday terms? (because i like applying social justice approaches to my daily life for authenticity)
harm reduction is "here are some ways you can do *insert something with drawbacks/something that could be harmful/something that might cause health issues* safely" instead of "don't do this"; harm reduction "come to me, don't do it alone" instead of "stop doing this"; harm reduction is "you know yourself best, if you're doing something with full information, then it must mean something to you, so instead of judging you, I'll trust you and support you" instead of "if you know it's problematic/unhealthy just stop doing it"; harm reduction is "I'll meet you where you're at" instead of "you should be here instead/I'll bring you here/you should work on yourself and change where you are"; harm reduction is "you don't have to stop doing or start doing *insert above mentioned particular thing* to deserve unconditional acceptance and positive regard/help when you need it etc" instead of "you need to change *insert thing* to be worthy of aid".
this can be applicable for drug and alcohol use, sexual/reproductive health, eating disorders, self harm, and so on. harm reduction is a principle, a social justice approach, and an evidence based practice.
me, going through bumble :
🎶where them girls at🎶
would you still love and respect me if I destroy my body? would you still love and respect me if I didn't get out of bed or move? would you still love and respect me if I did not contribute to society and perform productivity? would you still love and respect me if I harmed myself through alcohol, blades, food and/or drugs? would you still love and respect me if I were unhealthy and didn't do anything about it? would you still love and respect me unconditionally if i were a broken down building on a dark, gloomy street that was once a lovely neighborhood with parks and joy? would you still visit? would you still love and respect me if i didn't take care of myself? why do you love me? would you respect me if the only thing I can do is love?
For a long time I've believed that if I were to be pro - sex work/ supportive of sex workers, I had to be pro-porn, I had to think of porn as empowering, instead of oppressive, I had to think of the porn industry as something that allows sex workers to explore their sexuality and empower themselves. It took a lot of learning and unlearning to finally understand that being pro-sex work/ supportive of sex workers and believing that porn empowers certain sex workers can co-exist with the fact that the porn industry is messed up, misogynistic and exploitative. It doesn't exist in dichotomies - both are facts.
The porn industry is exploitative, Pornhub is exploitative and rape apologistic - but acknowledging and criticising the misogyny and abuse in the porn industry does not give you the right to shame sex workers in any way. They're not perpetuating or encouraging any of this, they're not aiding in their own oppression - they're a part of a system which exploits them; shame the system, not the workers.
//
If you don't blame or/and shame the people who're being exploited by capitalism for being exploited by the system, what makes you think you can blame and shame sex workers for the same? Where the fuck does your hypocrisy end?
My maternal grandma and I were talking about large age gaps in relationships and the importance of sex education, especially for women and I was ranting about all this to her.
My mom and my grandma never had proper sex education. So whatever they learned, they had to learn from their older, much more educated husbands. And no matter how much a good person your husband is, in such a situation, there will be some amount of grooming/manipulation involved - consciously or unconsciously. They'll teach their wives things they like, they'll only impart limited knowledge - they can only teach another person things they know, so if they don't know anything about women's pleasure, they won't know how to tell their wives either. And purposely or not, they might only teach their wives things they like - so a woman believes that these are things they *have* to do while having sex, things they *have* to do in a marriage to make their husbands happy and they could live their whole life not knowing what they like/want. It's so easy for husbands to take advantage of their wives. Even if it's in a tiny way, still. And they might not give them proper sex education, sex education from an "objective" perspective. Moreover, if the husband is conservative and believes in sex only for procreation, they won't even try to make their wives feel good and their wives wouldn't know any better!
But this same man may have gone through pronographic magazines or whatever when he was younger, he may already know about male pleasure. He might have already explored his likes and dislikes, but his wife never got that chance, and now she never will.
It's all so fucking messed up.
My grandma agreed with me tho, completely.
I'm sad.
23 \\ she/her // pan oriented aroace CONTENT WARNING FOR LIKE 89.8% OF MY POSTS
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